Impressions, anecdotes, etc. Any alumni here?
One of my friends is an alumna. She loved it there, although she didn’t seem to like being assigned to weaving her first year there, and found a different campus job the next year.
Any stories you hear about a “shoe library” are not true, by the way.
That’s all I’ve got.
The Bus-child attends college in berea, OH, which is no good as far as helping you out, but your thread title caught my eye. Didn’t mean to hijack, sorry - carry on.
My grandmother really wanted me to go there. I probably should have. I’d be pretty happy if Abbie Jr. chose Berea someday.
As I understand, it’s a character building school. You work your way through. It’s in a beautiful area and although it’s a Christian school they have all kinds of critters that go there. As Christian colleges go, it probably isn’t as in-your-face as, say, ORU or Pensacola. Chapel is mandatory once a week, IIRC.
You’ll probably find Very Nice Christian Guys/Gals there, as well as hardcore heathen types who are only there because they couldn’t get in anywhere else, or it’s close to home or something. If you want sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, you’ll probably be able to find it – just have to look a little harder.
And being that it’s a Christian college, it’s probably a good place to go if you’re wanting to get married right away. I don’t know anyone who went to a Bible college who graduated without at least being engaged. Something in the water?
Overall, a nice little school.
Hmm. Mandatory chapel? That’s more Christian that I thought (I went to another nominally Baptist school, but it seems that the only time that ever came up was when there was an argument about whether there should be condom machines in the dorm bathrooms and the trustees nixed the plan-- a “Baptist College” in Oregon might mean something a bit different from “Baptist College” in the southeast). How does this Christian-ness affect the classroom in the southeast? As an atheist from the west, if I were teaching a class there would I have to watch my language and/or content? I mean, it’s not a dry county or anything is it?
Dry county? It might be. Berea is in Madison County, which I think is dry except for local option at, literally, the precinct level. Most of Richmond, the county seat, is wet, as are other places in the area. I simply don’t remember is Berea is wet or dry.
Berea is a 100% scholaship school - students don’t pay a dime, but have to work. It’s considered a good school and has very loyal alumni.
However, I think an atheist form Oregon would feel very out of place there. I’m an atheist from here in Kentucky and I wouldn’t consider living outside of Lexington (or Louisville) because the rural counties are simply too backward (IMHO, of course).
So I guess I’m doing something Oregonians are accused of doing - discouraging someone from immigrating. However, Lexington is pretty nice and we could use more western free thinkers here.
Oops - I just noticed the “north Idaho” thing - I assume you’re near CDA.
I guess the point’s the same, though.
I did some poking around their website, and while Berea may be a Christian college, they definitely don’t seem to push it on students.
I haven’t found anything on their website about mandatory chapel (that doesn’t mean it’s not there, just that I’m not finding it on a quick overview of the student handbook).
I do find information about convocations, but they don’t seem like they are specifically religious events.
But I’ve never looked at it closely, and I’ve dug about as far into their website as I’m going to. 
West Point isn’t as in-your-face as Pensacola.
Berea College student here (granted, a freshman, but take what you can get).
Anyway, the college is pretty small, in a scenic area. I think there’s only about 1500 students or so. The surrounding town has pretty much nothing (if you want an idea, its claim to fame is being the “Craft Capital of Kentucky”).
Students have to work 10 hours a week minimum at a campus job and don’t attend for free. The college pays tuition (somewhere around 20,000 a year I think), students pay for room, board, and supplies, but all of this depends on your income. Income is one of the ways you qualify to even attend (the school is supposed to be for students from poorer families.) Students are also given laptop computers by the school; one on loan for two years, then a new one for the last two years which you can keep if you graduate.
There is no mandatory chapel. From what I’ve heard, there apparently used to be, but it must have been done away with because I’ve never been to a church service at all in my time here. They do have a beautiful chapel though (I just stop by for the view). There are convocations, which are like seminars, discussions, etc. and are generally not religious in nature. They range from discussion of different problems in society all the way to concerts. Students have to attend seven of them per term (or 14 in a year). I will say that whenever religion does come up, it’s generally from a Christian perspective and a big chunk of the students are some denomination thereof. I wouldn’t say they’re really “in your face” about it though. They don’t try to convert you or anything, but if you’re another religion (like myself), it can be a little lonely. I haven’t really heard from those with no particular religion on how they feel about it.
Let’s see…the actual campus itself is beautiful, with lots of green space and big oak trees (we also seem to have more squirrels than people). Most of the dorms have been newly renovated, although don’t count on getting those as a freshman. I live in what is generally known as the girls’ “ghetto” on campus and it’s not hard for me to see where that reputation came from. The actual academic facilities are in excellent shape generally and pretty up to date technologically as well.
Classes are generally pretty small, usually about 15-20 people, maybe more if it’s a really popular class. Expectations can be pretty high, but as usual a lot of that depends on the professor. The general studies classes can be a pain; generally all they deal with is society’s problems, mostly racism and other kinds of discrimination. So if you come here, be prepared to talk about those things All. The. Time.
I like it so far. I’m still kind of trying to find my niche and decide on a major, which could be a problem because they don’t seem to have many. It can be tiresome sometimes, because for all its reputation as being a “radical” school , there are quite a few conservative students and faculty. Of course, we have lots of more liberal students to balance it out. 
I can try to field questions I guess, although as I mentioned I’m a freshman so I might not be an expert yet. I’ve never even heard a “shoe library” story for instance.
Ah, good information, good information. Thanks, everyone. Keep it coming.
Kimchan-- what’s the town like? One decent coffee shop, one decent bakery kind of college town? Is there a Greek system on campus? Sporty? What’s the academic ethic like? What do students do for fun?
(I might have the possibility of living there for a year-- It would be a temporary situation, and I’m not a student. Just checking into the general culture). I’m not an “evangelical” atheist-- I have a pretty anthopological/open approach to things, so a bit of Christianity won’t upset me. I just don’t want to accidentally get myself in trouble.
Anyone who can field things like housing situation in town welcome, too.
Kilvert-- I spent a lot of time in Oregon so it’s all fair, heh. I know what you mean.
Hmm, we have a coffee and tea place pretty much in the middle of campus. I guess they have food too, I haven’t really been. There was another place where a lot of high school and college kids liked to hang out, but it closed for some reason. Pretty much, the only substantial store here is Wal Mart (everyone says that if you ever want to find someone, just look at Wal Mart). We’re right next to the interstate, so a lot of it is tourist oriented. On the brighter side, we’re very close to Richmond, which has a little more variety (and if you’re still bored, alcohol) and reasonably close to Lexington, which has a lot of variety.
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No Greek system that I know of. The closest I’ve ever heard of are a few departmental honor societies and clubs with Greek names.
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There isn’t really a focus on athletics like some of the other nearby colleges. I don’t know exactly all of what they offer, there’s info here though.
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I would say the school is very focused on academics (not a party school, sport school, etc.). Most of the students are very intelligent and pretty serious about their studies. Which isn’t to say we don’t goof off every now and then, but everyone has to work pretty hard here I think.
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To be honest, I’m kind of shy and haven’t really done a good job of getting out and making friends to find out exactly what the popular fun things are. But I do know there’s a sizable athletic complex here where students go to swim, exercise and play games. There’s a really big field towards the edge of campus, so there seems to be a lot of soccer and for some reason, frisbee. There are hiking trails right behind that. Quite a few student clubs, although a lot of them are religious in nature. The activities board also shows movies every week and puts on a lot of different events for the students. Barring all that, students can take a shuttle van to larger cities nearby and go see a movie or something like that. There just isn’t that much to do in our own town unfortunately. And if you’re wondering about the shuttle vans, I forgot to mention that most students are not allowed to have cars, I think mostly because of parking limitations or something like that. So the school provides rides instead.
Berea’s a little strange. It’s pretty devoid of anything to do really, unless you collect antiques or crafts. You have to go to the other, bigger cities I mentioned to find much else. It is basically a small town that seems pretty conservative, but there is sort of another side since we’ve got a few artists and plenty of strange college students. I’m not sure how helpful it will really be, but the town has an official website: Link